Horrible Timing
by MadeiIncredi917
Summary: This has nothing to do with any real feeling concerning real people, just a circumstance I played with, and is sort of based of an event that happened to a friend of mine.


**I based this off something that happened to a friend.**

Marinette had an extremely sore throat. Her choir teacher, who was only at the school twice a week on two consecutive days, had had enough of the talk, the kids not really trying, and the ones trying to be funny by changing the lyrics. She had snapped, morphing from a sweet, just-out-of-university, bubbly teacher into a crazy tyrant, who had promptly been akumatized.

Voice Crackler had been terrifying, loud and mad. She seemed especially loud because she made everyone else quiet. She sucked the noise out of everyone and everything anywhere near her, making talking difficult. Then she used other noise to make her own voice louder, until the earth shook with every word that erupted from her mouth, while everyone else had to shout at top of their voice in order to produce a hoarse whisper. Cat Noir had presented a simple solution; don't talk. Huh! Easy for him to say, waving a notebook with snappy one-liners and comebacks filling the lined pages in the villain's face, his pencil stuck behind one cat-like ear. However, as Ladybug, Marinette, without so much as a scrap of paper, had to tell Cat Noir what she needed him to do to help her bring down the akuma, had to bait the villain, and had to get a whole bunch of citizens out of the way. As such, Marinette had been raspy all day.

Now, she was in choir. Standing on a bench for so long your knees gave out and you toppled forward, getting awful songs stuck in your brain, and trying not to disturb a sleeping dragon, otherwise known as a testy teacher. There were upsides, like getting to stand in the top row and feel really tall, and getting to stand next to Alya (far too busy with her blog to try and learn the clarinet or something) and swap stupid jokes and snippets of gossip in between songs, and if choir got too awful, she just excused herself to go to the bathroom or walk her goldfish (Only one of which worked.). Besides, this was Paris, so half the time there was an akuma attack anyway, but not today, and she certainly was not going to use an excuse, or talk, due to yesterday's mishap. But she really did NOT want to be here. She had only signed up for choir because she had no time to learn to play an instrument in the school band. Everyone had to do something in the end-of-year school concert, and unfortunately there were only two options. Right now though, she REALLY did not want to sing. She hated singing normally, being shy, but her throat was just making it so much worse. The teacher shouted, sharper then sewing scissors, clearly still on edge.

"STOP! All the boys sing NOW!"

"STOP! All the girls sing NOW!"

Marinette had a idea. The teacher, no matter how testy, was still fairly young, and therefore appreciated a clever excuse that was also just unusual enough to be funny.

"All the boys sing NOW!"

She just had to wait to use hers.

"All the girls sing NOW!"

She clamped her lips shut, ignoring the warning look Alya was giving her.

"STOP. "

The teacher's face changed, questioning if Marinette was really poking the cranky bear, before her mouth caught up with it.

"Why on earth are you not singing?"

The teacher's left eye was twitching so badly, Marinette and Alya could see it easily from their perch. A blind man could have seen how hard the teacher was struggling to keep calm.

Marinette smiled.

"For the duration of this lesson, I am gender-neutral. You can't make me sing."

Yes the teacher was young. Young enough to quickly find a loophole, making that statement untrue.

Yes, she could.

"All the girls-and-gender-neutral-people sing NOW!"

Marinette rubbed her throat but kept singing. She had to respect the teacher's authority there. The the teacher made the class stop a second time.

"Adrian Agreste, why are you singing with the girls?"

Adrian grinned at the teacher.

"I've decided to be gender neutral for this lesson too."

The teacher, fed up and not wanting to be akumatized again, gave in and let the boy and gir- err, the two people stop singing. She then banned changing your gender to get out of singing, as of right then, this second. Adrian turned around and winked at Marinette. He then whispered up.

"Good idea. You'd be good when you're in between a rock and a hard place. I'm glad I know you, but you'd be great even without the good ideas. He then turned to the front like her had not just taken her world and perception of reality, thrown them into a woodchip maker, and then brutally murdered every piece with a sledgehammer.

Her long-time crush had winked at her and also maybe sort of flirted. This was amazing! Or would have been. Except... Marinette was over it as of literally yesterday though the process had taken quite a while. She had thrown away every poster, cancelled her membership in his fanpage, listened to sad songs and watched sad romantic movies while eating way too many things that were high in either sugar of salt (having access to a whole bakery was handy when you were binge-eating), and had several good cries. She had gotten it all out of her system and accepted that they would never be more than friends. Now he liked her, apparently. Well okay. That was fine. It did not bother her one single tiny little bit...!

Alya watched as her friend struggled not to explode, going fire-engine red in the process. After dozens of late-night phone calls about THAT BOY he had gotten a clue. Well, too little, to late. Or--judging by Marinette's face--too much for one girl to possibly handle the ensuing emotional roller coaster, too late. She muttered something that was not a high note, as it was supposed to be, under her breath.

"That is one case of horrible, horrible timing."

 **I would like to hear your opinion on how I did.**

 **~Madei**


End file.
